Easy DIY James Webb Telescope Mirror.

I love the new James Webb telescope design so I wanted to recreate the primary mirror.

The list of tools and materials in this instucrables is quite small.

Materials.

• 1mm thick hardboard. Or any thin timber or card.
• Printer paper.
• Black paint. (I used matt black spray)
• Hexagonal mirror panels. I got mine from eBay and they are 23mm per side.

Tools.

• Printer (for printing templates)
• Saw, Scroll saw, frett saw.
• Craft knife.
• File, sandpaper.
• Ruler ,straight edge.
• Pen or pencil.
• Computer with some drawing software. I used coreldraw.

I Wanted the backing board to match the black support material of the telescope mirror. I’ve seen some other mirrors that are just the hexagon shape, I wanted my mirror to look more like the actual one.

So I used a photo of the real James Webb mirror and traced over it in coreldraw.

I used the size of the hexagon mirrors I had to scale the drawing.

Once I had the design drawn up I printed out some colour versions and some line drawings.

I pasted two of the printouts together as the design is just a bit wider than an A4 sheet.

Then I attached the template to the hardboard and cut it out with a scroll saw.

This type of hardboard can be cut with a knife if you go gently, I had a scroll saw so I used that.

you can use any type of wood or thick card, whatever you have or want is fine.

Once the background was cut, I used a file and some sandpaper to refine the edges and make them straight and neat.

Then I did a test layout of the mirror panels just for fun. To get an idea of what it might look like when finished.

I then removed the template and sanded the hardboard.

Then I did another test layout just for fun.

I gave the board a few coats of matt black spray paint, sanding between coats.

using the line drawing template I placed the template on the background board and secured it in place with a bit of tape.

Using a ruler and a pen I traced the lines of the hexagons so it made slights marks in the paint to show the placement of the mirror panels.

Using the lines scribed from the last step I used the self adhesive backing on the mirror panels to attach them to the black background.

Once they were all applied I removed the front protective film on all the mirrors and gave them a little clean.

Now you have your finished mirror, it’s time to find somewhere suitable to display it.

Thank you for reading my instructable.

if you have any questions please ask and I will do my best to answer them.